Vulnerability, Everyone is talking about it but are YOU doing it?

How we can list every superhero from Superman to Wonder Woman’s weakness?

How people on first dates search for something in common?

How we watch reality TV waiting for the moment we see “real emotions”?

What are we looking for?

It’s simple.

Vulnerability

And as Dr Brenē Brown states, it’s a paradox:

“Vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I want you to see in me!”

Every superhero’s weakness lets us humans relate to them, connect with them.

If they were perfect, not only would the story be very boring to watch, we also wouldn’t be inspired by them, follow them and from age 5, want to be like them. Their weakness makes them more like us.

On first dates, we are often looking for a sense of belonging, a common ground that binds us or at least makes us hope we might be a match.

And when we watch reality TV, we are waiting for that moment when someone “shows their V!”. In that second we know we are watching something real about someone real and we are transfixed to the screen…because we feel connection, belonging and we want more…

(Heading)Vulnerability – the most misrepresented word in the dictionary?

Vulnerability is defined as “exposed to being attacked or harmed”, which doesn’t sound positive, does it?

But thanks to Dr Brenē Brown’s decade plus of research we can now give Vulnerability a more life-practical definition as: “Uncertainty, Risk and Emotional Exposure” – feelings we face regularly at work and home.

Feelings that in this changing world are now part of the daily furniture in our lives.

Feelings that are essential if we want a life with real connections, belonging, trust and successful relationships.

As Susan Jeffers says “Every fear we have are all driven by the fear – what if I can’t cope?”

Knowing this – Enter Conscious Courage!

Vulnerability requires courage to be successful. Courage is the “how”. There’s no getting away from that.

As my grandmother often said to me – “If it was easy, everyone would be doing it!”

Which is why only Brenē has taken the world by storm with her public vulnerable Tedx talk in 2010!

Even you reading this far has required conscious decision of courage…

So here’s your challenge.

If you want more vulnerability in your life, more connection, belonging and trust? You need courage.

We all have different levels of courage in different situations but all of us could do it better and more often…

Courage is a skill with four key parts essential and like all valuable skills it takes training and practise. This is the work I do with people leading themselves or a team or an entire organisation, every day.

So why show your Vulnerability?

Because the alternative – to not show your vulnerability leads to a life of pretend, of hustling your story and of feeling the pressure to be perfect to live a story that is only part the real you and that never feels enough…

Without vulnerability we may never really feel connected to ourselves and others…if we don’t take the risk to move out of judgement towards empathy, move away from defensiveness towards compassion then we can feel different, uncertain if we fit, lonely, fake, fearful or just tired of keeping up the invulnerability wall!

When you show your vulnerability the door is open to everything we desire as humans;

Connection, belonging, trust, love, learning, growth, new ideas, adaptability to change, acceptance of ourselves as imperfect wonderful humans! Fearing less and feeling stronger in ourselves. Speaking our truth, knowing we are doing our best right now and that we are enough.

When I’m vulnerable and courageous I find the world is more fun and I am a lot kinder to myself…

Are you ready to lift your courage to create…?

If you believe connection starts with your vulnerability and you want to know how to do it consciously?

Then join me and register for LIFT’s “Your Courage to Create…” workshop so you can be consciously vulnerable and confidently courageous at work, at home, in your whole life! Read more and register here.

or

Join me for Life’s “3 Day Conscious Vulnerability Challenge” starting on the 15th of October. It’s FREE what have you got to lose?. Register here.